Jay Leno: Failing upwards --> CLOSED

Let's me get this straight. Your show is so bad in the ratings you cancel it, and then you get to steal someone else's job. WTF! I'm sure the few Leno fans out there will point out that Conan's ratings were down. Do you want to know why? He didn't have the luxury of a lead in like Law and Order or ER. He had the Jay Leno as his lead in. Is it any wonder people didn't watch NBC? NBC should have cancelled the Leno show and given Conan a real chance to shine with lead in programs that people actually watch. And who wants to watch 4 hours of talk shows? Okay, it's 3 and a half hours, with the news wedged right in there.

What do Mrs. Leno, Carson, Letterman and Conan have in common? They've all been screwed by Jay Leno.

DYasha wrote:
Maybe I missed something - how did Leno screw Carson? Seems to me Johnny held all the cards 'til the day he gave up the show.

No offense, but that is one of the most ridiculous comments I have ever read. Clearly you are a big fan of Conan, but are you deliberately ignoring reality? Nobody watches Conan because there are a handful of 12-year olds who like him but everyone else finds him unbelievably annoying.

The person who got jobbed was Leno. Bad ratings/steal someone else's job? That is exactly what Conan did to Leno, who was #1 for over a decade and dominated the 11:30 time slot. The mystery is why NBC didn't let Conan walk back then. Nobody else wants him. Most speculation has him landing at the Comedy Channel because no major channel has any interest in hiring him. He is a great writer but a TERRIBLE performer. Even after years of practice his delivery is painful.

Despite the damage that Conan has done to the Tonight Show brand, Leno will go back to #1 in the ratings within 3 months, regardless of what the 10pm garbage show is. He got good ratings for years in that time slot despite NBC being last in the ratings, so nice try blaming Conan's extremely limited appeal on the primetime lineup.

And how exactly did Leno screw Carson? By respectfully waiting in the wings without whining for many years until Carson was ready to leave on his own terms?? Unlike Conan or Dave ever tried to do...

DYasha wrote:

My point is that Conan wasn't given an opportunity as the Tonight Show Host. Leno's 10pm show ruined NBC's line up and that did effect Conan's ratings, whether you admit it or not. Conan was suppose to be given the opportunity to be the "big dog", but Jay Leno swooped in at the last moment and stole his thunder. NBC should have let Jay Leno retire for good and give Conan a real opportunity. Maybe he would have failed, but we didn't get a chance to find out.

And Carson would have stayed on longer if he wasn't being pressured by NBC, who were being pressured by Leno and his agent (reportedly), to give Carson the axe. And if given the choice, Carson would have chosen Letterman as his successor. Somehow Leno weaseled his way in and the rest is history.

Personally, I want to watch a show where the audience laughs instead of applauds (politely). A show with jokes instead of some old guy reading a newspaper clipping, or asking dumb people questions. "What did you do over the weekend, Kevin?" Comedy is a matter of opinion, but in my opinion Conan is infinitely better than Jay Leno. Funnier, smarter, and a better comedian. The only good thing about this is now I can watch Letterman. You know he's happy that NBC and Leno are up the creek without a paddle.

billyellis wrote:

You got that right! Just for laughs, I went to Google and searched "Conan Sucks". The reading was funnier than anything I ever heard out of Conan's mouth.

DYasha wrote:
You're joking, right? You think Letterman's happy that his brief return to the top of the ratings is about to end??

DYasha wrote:
Oh, sure. Just ignore the years where Leno won ratings on nights when the NBC 10pm show was last in the ratings. They have been in last place for some time now. That did not suddenly happen just before Conan took over. NBC has been getting killed at 10pm for a long time, and it never stopped Leno from winning the 11:30-12:30 slot. Leno's worst-ever ratings were better than Conan's best-ever ratings. And the reality is that most of Conan's numbers at 12:30 were due to Leno's great lead-in audience. Whether you admit it or not.

DYasha wrote:
Yeah. What a jerk, being the guest host for a decade with no guarantees of getting the host job when Johnny retired. What a weasel for putting in the time and doing the grunt work and building an audience/getting Johnny's audience familiar with him. Total weasel.

DYasha wrote:
Right you are. And in almost everybody's opinion Conan is terrible and Jay is the host of the Tonight Show. You are welcome to your extreme minority opinion. Feel free to watch Letterman (and the same 5 jokes he has been recycling since 1982) or try and find Conan on QVC or Espn 8 (The "Ocho").

Why so venomous? I am trying to be diplomatic about it and you're slapping me in the face. "You are in the extreme minority" and "only 12 year olds like Conan" etc. Whatever. The point I was trying to make was that Leno was given several years to beat Letterman in the ratings, while Conan was only given 7 months. Leno didn't have a talk show on at 10pm, torpedoing his efforts. Yes, as of late NBC's 10pm programming did poorly in the ratings, but that wasn't always the case. In the 90's and early 2000's he had the benefit of top notch dramas as his lead in, helping him build an audience. Conan was not given the opportunity to build an audience at 11:35, nor did he have a show like ER as his lead in (like Leno did in the 90's). Some people like Leno, some like Conan, some like Craig Ferguson, but my point is that Conan deserved a legitimate shot at being the Tonight Show host. 7 months with a crappy lead in show, combined with Letterman's sex scandal wasn't a fair shot, in my opinion.

DYasha wrote:
Venomous? You want to start a thread ripping one of the most widely respected entertainers in show business but you want your guy to get no scrutiny in return?

You started a venomous thread. If you can't take it, maybe you should think twice before dishing it out.

I close this thread, before it becomes a flame war.



Monkey D. Ruffy